Tang Wan Kung (from The works of Mencius) & The Hsiao Ching

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And yet the people of the neighboring kingdoms do not decrease, nor do my people increase. Jump to dictionary Show additional information. Mencius replied, 'Your majesty is fond of war - let me take an illustration from war. The soldiers move forward to the sound of the drums; and after their weapons have been crossed, on one side they throw away their coats of mail, trail their arms behind them, and run. Some run a hundred paces and stop; some run fifty paces and stop. What would you think if those who run fifty paces were to laugh at those who run a hundred paces?

The king said, 'They should not do so. Though they did not run a hundred paces, yet they also ran away. If the seasons of husbandry be not interfered with, the grain will be more than can be eaten. If close nets are not allowed to enter the pools and ponds, the fishes and turtles will be more than can be consumed. If the axes and bills enter the hills and forests only at the proper time, the wood will be more than can be used. When the grain and fish and turtles are more than can be eaten, and there is more wood than can be used, this enables the people to nourish their living and mourn for their dead, without any feeling against any.

This condition, in which the people nourish their living and bury their dead without any feeling against any, is the first step of royal government. Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five mu, and persons of fifty years may be clothed with silk. In keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their times of breeding be neglected, and persons of seventy years may eat flesh. Let there not be taken away the time that is proper for the cultivation of the farm with its hundred mu, and the family of several mouths that is supported by it shall not suffer from hunger.

Let careful attention be paid to education in schools, inculcating in it especially the filial and fraternal duties, and grey-haired men will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads. It never has been that the ruler of a State, where such results were seen - persons of seventy wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-haired people suffering neither from hunger nor cold - did not attain to the royal dignity.

There are people dying from famine on the roads, and you do not issue the stores of your granaries for them. When people die, you say, "It is not owing to me; it is owing to the year. King Hui of Liang said, 'I wish quietly to receive your instructions. Mencius replied, 'Is there any difference between killing a man with a stick and with a sword? Mencius then said, 'In your kitchen there is fat meat; in your stables there are fat horses.

But your people have the look of hunger, and on the wilds there are those who have died of famine. This is leading on beasts to devour men. Beasts devour one another, and men hate them for doing so. When a prince, being the parent of his people, administers his government so as to be chargeable with leading on beasts to devour men, where is his parental relation to the people? Zhong Ni said, 'Was he not without posterity who first made wooden images to bury with the dead?

So he said, because that man made the semblances of men, and used them for that purpose - what shall be thought of him who causes his people to die of hunger?

But since it descended to me, on the east we have been defeated by Qi, and then my eldest son perished; on the west we have lost seven hundred li of territory to Qin; and on the south we have sustained disgrace at the hands of Chu. I have brought shame on my departed predecessors, and wish on their account to wipe it away, once for all. What course is to be pursued to accomplish this? Mencius replied, 'With a territory which is only a hundred li square, it is possible to attain to the royal dignity. If Your Majesty will indeed dispense a benevolent government to the people, being sparing in the use of punishments and fines, and making the taxes and levies light, so causing that the fields shall be ploughed deep, and the weeding of them be carefully attended to, and that the strong-bodied, during their days of leisure, shall cultivate their filial piety, fraternal respectfulness, sincerity, and truthfulness, serving thereby, at home, their fathers and elder brothers, and, abroad, their elders and superiors, you will then have a people who can be employed, with sticks which they have prepared, to oppose the strong mail and sharp weapons of the troops of Qin and Chu.

The rulers of those States rob their people of their time, so that they cannot plough and weed their fields, in order to support their parents. Their parents suffer from cold and hunger. Brothers, wives, and children are separated and scattered abroad. Those rulers, as it were, drive their people into pit-falls, or drown them. Your Majesty will go to punish them. In such a case, who will oppose your Majesty? In accordance with this is the saying, "The benevolent has no enemy.

Mencius went to see the king Xiang of Liang. On coming out from the interview, he said to some persons, 'When I looked at him from a distance, he did not appear like a sovereign; when I drew near to him, I saw nothing venerable about him. Abruptly he asked me, "How can the kingdom be settled? Does your Majesty understand the way of the growing grain? During the seventh and eighth months, when drought prevails, the plants become dry.

The Works of Mencius/chapter10

Then the clouds collect densely in the heavens, they send down torrents of rain, and the grain erects itself, as if by a shoot. When it does so, who can keep it back?

Now among the shepherds of men throughout the nation, there is not one who does not find pleasure in killing men. If there were one who did not find pleasure in killing men, all the people in the nation would look towards him with outstretched necks. Such being indeed the case, the people would flock to him, as water flows downwards with a rush, which no one can repress.

Mencius replied, 'There were none of the disciples of Zhong Ni who spoke about the affairs of Huan and Wen, and therefore they have not been transmitted to these after-ages - your servant has not heard them.

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If you will have me speak, let it be about royal government. The king said, 'What virtue must there be in order to attain to royal sway? Mencius answered, 'The love and protection of the people; with this there is no power which can prevent a ruler from attaining to it. The king asked again, 'Is such an one as I competent to love and protect the people? The king saw him, and asked, Where is the ox going?

The man replied, We are going to consecrate a bell with its blood. The king said, Let it go.

I cannot bear its frightened appearance, as if it were an innocent person going to the place of death. The man answered, Shall we then omit the consecration of the bell? The king said, How can that be omitted? Change it for a sheep. The people all supposed that your Majesty grudged the animal, but your servant knows surely, that it was your Majesty's not being able to bear the sight, which made you do as you did.

The king said, 'You are right. And yet there really was an appearance of what the people condemned. But though Qi be a small and narrow State, how should I grudge one ox? Indeed it was because I could not bear its frightened appearance, as if it were an innocent person going to the place of death, that therefore I changed it for a sheep. Mencius pursued, 'Let not your Majesty deem it strange that the people should think you were grudging the animal.

When you changed a large one for a small, how should they know the true reason? If you felt pained by its being led without guilt to the place of death, what was there to choose between an ox and a sheep? The king laughed and said, 'What really was my mind in the matter? I did not grudge the expense of it, and changed it for a sheep!

There was reason in the people's saying that I grudged it. You saw the ox, and had not seen the sheep. So is the superior man affected towards animals, that, having seen them alive, he cannot bear to see them die; having heard their dying cries, he cannot bear to eat their flesh.

Therefore he keeps away from his slaughter-house and cook-room. The king was pleased, and said, 'It is said in the Book of Poetry, "The minds of others, I am able by reflection to measure;" - this is verified, my Master, in your discovery of my motive.

I indeed did the thing, but when I turned my thoughts inward, and examined into it, I could not discover my own mind. When you, Master, spoke those words, the movements of compassion began to work in my mind. How is it that this heart has in it what is equal to the royal sway?

Mencius replied, 'Suppose a man were to make this statement to your Majesty: Is an exception to be made here? The truth is, the feather is not lifted , because strength is not used; the waggon-load of firewood is not seen, because the eyesight is not used; and the people are not loved and protected, because kindness is not employed. Therefore your Majesty's not exercising the royal sway, is because you do not do it, not because you are not able to do it.

《孟子 - Mengzi》

The king asked, 'How may the difference between the not doing a thing, and the not being able to do it, be represented? Mencius replied,'In such a thing as taking the Tai mountain under your arm, and leaping over the north sea with it, if you say to people "I am not able to do it," that is a real case of not being able. In such a matter as breaking off a branch from a tree at the order of a superior, if you say to people "I am not able to do it," that is a case of not doing it, it is not a case of not being able to do it. The Shi Ji states that he became a member of the academy during the time of King Xiang of Qi , discounting the story of his being a teacher of Han Fei , but it's chronology would give him a lifetime of years.

Later, Xunzi was slandered in the Qi court, and he retreated south to the state of Chu. He retired, remained in Lanling, a region in what is today's southern Shandong province, for the rest of his life and was buried there. The year of his death is unknown, [10] [11] though if he lived to see the ministership of supposed student Li Si , as recounted, he would have lived into his nineties, dying shortly after BC. Xunzi witnessed the chaos surrounding the fall of the Zhou dynasty and rise of the Qin state — which upheld "doctrines focusing on state control, by means of law and penalties " Chinese Legalism ".

His variety of Confucianism therefore has a "darker", more pragmatic flavour than the optimistic Confucianism of Mencius , who tended to view humans as innately good , though like most Confucians he believed that people could be refined through education and ritual. He rejects the Book of Lord Shang and Zhuangzi 's claims that the way changes with the times, saying the way had been invented by the sages.

Ultimately, he refused to admit theories of state and administration apart from ritual and self-cultivation, arguing for the gentleman, rather than the measurements promoted by the "Legalists", as the wellspring of objective criterion. Hundred Schools of Thought. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the Chinese philosopher.

For his work, see Xunzi book. Old Texts New Text Confucianism. Interactions Between Heaven and Mankind.

Confucian ritual religion Temple of Confucius Confucian churches and sects: The Chronology of Xunzi's Works. Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy. A Chinese Biographical Dictionary. Knechtges and Taiping Chang Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature vols.

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